10 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

If you look at the squad, it definitely isn't put together to play with 5 at the back. We only have 8 defenders. That's enough for 4 at the back, to cope with injuries, suspension etc, but probably 2 players short for 5 at the back to be the intention. With Fofana, James and Koulibaly currently all ruled out, there is now zero defensive cover on the bench for 5 at the back.

Thing is we still have issues in a back 4 too, but at this point it’s better than a back 5.
 

Just amazes me, genuinely amazes me Tuchel didn’t deem the midfield an issue until after Leeds. Zero creativity and defensive physicality in midfield, which would actually allow us to play a back 4. 

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by Sconnie Blue

1 hour ago, just said:

Lampard dropped him 

He also thought Kurt Zouma was a better defender than Rudiger.

Just now, Argo said:

He also thought Kurt Zouma was a better defender than Rudiger.

So did a lot of other people at that point in time!

3 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Thing is we still have issues in a back 4 too, but at this point it better than a back 5.
 

Just amazes me, genuinely amazes me Tuchel didn’t deem the midfield an issue until after Leeds. Zero creativity and defensive physicality in midfield, which would actually allow us to play a back 4. 

I think TT was guilty of drinking too much of the Kante Kool Aid, and genuinely believed he'd have an injury free season after a summer's rest and some specialised training ... and that he'd be the answer to a better midfield. Once he broke down, I think the panic set in. The old "all your eggs in one basket" analogy, and absolutely daft as hell LOL.

Arguably need 2 DMs and 2 creative midfielders. 
 

 

2 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Arguably need 2 DMs and 2 creative midfielders. 
 

 

I'm interested to see how Potter can develop Chukwuemeka, as I believe he can be one of the creatives ... 

Just now, Sexyfootball said:

I'm interested to see how Potter can develop Chukwuemeka, as I believe he can be one of the creatives ... 

I don’t see it personally although I’d love to be wrong.
 

Tunnel vision type midfielder so he fits right in. 

51 minutes ago, Chelsc96 said:

I think it is about time that people realise that we were 6th in the Premier League form table for 7/8 months under Tuchel. Getting top four last season was heavily reliant upon Tottenham, Manutd and Arsenal being poor. If there was any improvement from those three sides, in terms of results, they were going to knock us out of the top four this season.

We needed to show improvement to secure top four this season, but we didn't under Tuchel. We were, once again, sixth in the form table for the first six games of this season, and the performances were dire. We were leaking goals (9 in 6 matches - PL only) and there was no promise of improvement in our play. I would not doubt that we would have fallen below 6th by this point.

Just to show that we were actually poor last season - we actually averaged 5th in the form table from the 8th game of last season to the end. Our competition had absolutely dire periods that saved us from being out of the Champions League entirely. We had been performing poorly under Tuchel for a long time.

 

So what? PL is not just 7/8 months. The reasons were no Chilwell, no James for the majority of that period? See how Potter does when James is missing?

And btw poor form? Actually the only poor form was after those two were injured in December when there were so many covid cases and everyone got their games postponed except Chelsea. And at the end of the season with 5 points of 4 games.

But! Last season we were constantly top 4 and had 7 points to Tottenham and 1 game less on match day 34!

7 out of 9 games were won from match day 26th to 34th. 3 games with 6:0, 3:0, 4:0. There was no chance to reach Liverpool and City and that's how it's been for the last part of the season and top 4 seemed super safe at that time. This explains for me why the form was not amazing in the last part of the season. I've seen it a hundred times with teams in the league when the there is nothing to play for anymore. When city was way ahead they lost 3 of the last 8. When Bayern is miles away in the Bundesliga they suddenly start loosing a lot of matches, PSG same.

Looking back at the stats again. Still the dumbest decision to sack Tuchel. Yes the football was not the most entertaining in many games in his last half year but chilly and James were key for his games. This season he would have done great after the transfers had settled in.

Potter will be ok but he is not good enough and he will not win any major trophies.

 

22 minutes ago, just said:

So did a lot of other people at that point in time!

And so was Lampard wrong for dropping Jorginho, Alonso and Rudiger so instead of fighting for top 4 he's now fighting for survival at Everton. Tuchel and Potter didn't do that mistake.

17 hours ago, bisright1 said:

There is a lot of predictable knee jerk, which is fair enough

We started sh*t. Potter made is better. We almost won the game, then threw it away. 

I'll take it. I'm pissed off that we've lost 3 points against the top 6 twice. 

We need a game winner. We don't have a hazard/Salah/haaland if we had that we would be title challengers. 

But in the mean time I'm optimistic. 

 

Yep. Ever since the Sarri season every bad result is meet with sweeping statement after sweeping statement about how "f**ked" we are and every season we've made top 4 and atleast one cup final.

Our squad maybe flawed in terms of challenging City but there's zero excuse for Potter to fail with top four.

1 hour ago, jack_super_class said:

We don't have any exciting players to watch.

Disagree on that. When they are fit I find Chilwell, James, Gallagher, Hutchinson, Carney C and Broja exciting as they attack.

 

I also think watching what a rolls royce of a player Silva is, and how trev continues to develop interesting. Them on their own though with a none exisitant attack os nowhere near enough though.

54 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Arguably need 2 DMs and 2 creative midfielders. 
 

 

I actually compared our midfield's end product last season to Liverpool's and it showed that Jota and Mané had at least 15 PL and Salah 20+ goals if I remember correctly while their midfielders didn't really have a higher amount of assists in comparison to our own DM/CM players.

This suggests that while we do need a few new midfielders that it maybe won't solve our issues in attack at all.

10 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

I actually compared our midfield's end product last season to Liverpool's and it showed that Jota and Mané had at least 15 PL and Salah 20+ goals if I remember correctly while their midfielders didn't really have a higher amount of assists in comparison to our own DM/CM players.

This suggests that while we do need a few new midfielders that it maybe won't solve our issues in attack at all.

The attack is the least of my concern at the moment. 

What I want is some structure and solidity in midfield, something Liverpool has (or had) and something we've lacked for 5 years. 

2 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

The attack is the least of my concern at the moment. 

What I want is some structure and solidity in midfield, something Liverpool has (or had) and something we've lacked for 5 years. 

I can argue that our attack has been the most problematic part of our whole squad for the past 5 years while our midfield has been giving us stability and structure. Name 1 striker that has worked for us in the last 5 years, or 1 winger.

1 hour ago, jony92 said:

So what? PL is not just 7/8 months. The reasons were no Chilwell, no James for the majority of that period? See how Potter does when James is missing?

And btw poor form? Actually the only poor form was after those two were injured in December when there were so many covid cases and everyone got their games postponed except Chelsea. And at the end of the season with 5 points of 4 games.

But! Last season we were constantly top 4 and had 7 points to Tottenham and 1 game less on match day 34!

7 out of 9 games were won from match day 26th to 34th. 3 games with 6:0, 3:0, 4:0. There was no chance to reach Liverpool and City and that's how it's been for the last part of the season and top 4 seemed super safe at that time. This explains for me why the form was not amazing in the last part of the season. I've seen it a hundred times with teams in the league when the there is nothing to play for anymore. When city was way ahead they lost 3 of the last 8. When Bayern is miles away in the Bundesliga they suddenly start loosing a lot of matches, PSG same.

Looking back at the stats again. Still the dumbest decision to sack Tuchel. Yes the football was not the most entertaining in many games in his last half year but chilly and James were key for his games. This season he would have done great after the transfers had settled in.

Potter will be ok but he is not good enough and he will not win any major trophies.

 

It is a significant period of time. Average performance over a period indicates reality over a small sample; it is 8 months of averaging below top-four form. I believe that is an indicator of what we actually were for a large period last season, and I'm not shocked that we had a tough start in this one. The writing was on the wall, for me. 

Regarding James and Chilwell; didn't Tuchel have them this season? We also have everything to play for, so what is the reason for there being no improvement in performance? In fact, we looked worse this season under Tuchel with all of that going for him. Surely, we should have been expecting a replication of the start of last season?

We could not go into this season expecting the opposition to be as poor as they were last season; we needed to improve as we benefited too much from the opposition being terrible to get top four. This season, they have all improved and we regressed under Tuchel; I believe, had we stuck with him, we would not get top four as both our goal concessions and scoring were awful. 

It is the manager's job to motivate the players, and if he cannot pick them up for the final run of the season then it is failure on him to keep them driven. Despite Tottenham and Arsenal having terrible starts (being 10 and 11 points behind us at matchday 15), we still only finished 3 and 5 points off of them, respectively. I wouldn't say it was particularly comfortable at the end, considering where we were.

We topped the form table until matchday 15 last season, but that period hasn't been replicated. It seems more of an outlier to our league form. 

 

 

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by Chelsc96

35 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Disagree on that. When they are fit I find Chilwell, James, Gallagher, Hutchinson, Carney C and Broja exciting as they attack.

 

I also think watching what a rolls royce of a player Silva is, and how trev continues to develop interesting. Them on their own though with a none exisitant attack os nowhere near enough though.

I meant currently in the first team, yeah Broja i agree. Haven't seen enough of Carney.

3 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

I can argue that our attack has been the most problematic part of our whole squad for the past 5 years while our midfield has been giving us stability and structure. Name 1 striker that has worked for us in the last 5 years, or 1 winger.

That is just down to poor recruitment, although it is a bit ironic how attackers that failed here are improving their output elsewhere. 

Problem for me lies within the midfield. For years. 

- Why did Conte play a back 5? Because Arsenal tore our midfield apart in defensive transition. 

- Why did Sarri play a possession game? Because the best kind of defence is offence. Again, Arsenal carved us open until Sarri was smart enough to implement a safer possession approach. 

- Lampard showed the world the issues of our midfield. 

- Tuchel, like Conte, played a back 5 to protect the midfield. 

- Potter, now following suit. 

11 minutes ago, Chelsc96 said:

It is the manager's job to motivate the players, and if he cannot pick them up for the final run of the season then it is failure on him to keep them driven. Despite Tottenham and Arsenal having terrible periods, we still only finished 3 and 5 points off of them, respectively. I wouldn't say it was particularly comfortable at the end

I would, we made top four with two home games to spare and needed a point from Leicester or Watford for 3rd.

Regarding them getting close to us look at the difference in circumstances. Arsenal only had the league to focus on just after new year, Tottenham not long after that while we had to juggle 5 competitions and an unprecented ownership crisis which threatened our existence. 

To put our schedule into perspective had we got past Madrid we would have likely had to face both Leeds and Man.United in the same midweek.

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by Argo

5 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

That is just down to poor recruitment, although it is a bit ironic how attackers that failed here are improving their output elsewhere. 

Problem for me lies within the midfield. For years. 

- Why did Conte play a back 5? Because Arsenal tore our midfield apart in defensive transition. 

- Why did Sarri play a possession game? Because the best kind of defence is offence. Again, Arsenal carved us open until Sarri was smart enough to implement a safer possession approach. 

- Lampard showed the world the issues of our midfield. 

- Tuchel, like Conte, played a back 5 to protect the midfield. 

- Potter, now following suit. 

Our midfield does the job, our attack doesn't. We're the only team that doesn't have a good attack, everyone else have some goalscorers.

Lampard had a good first season, he used 4-2-3-1 with Mount in front of Jorginho and Kovacic and the midfield was good. Later on he lost the plot.

Again, our midfield didn't have a worse end product in comparison to Liverpool's midfield but despite that we didn't have 3 players with 15 PL goals or more.

16 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

I meant currently in the first team, yeah Broja i agree. Haven't seen enough of Carney.

Ah I see. Yes yesterday's starting line up was like "well I hope Mason plays a blinder"....

6 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Our midfield does the job, our attack doesn't. We're the only team that doesn't have a good attack, everyone else have some goalscorers.

Lampard had a good first season, he used 4-2-3-1 with Mount in front of Jorginho and Kovacic and the midfield was good. Later on he lost the plot.

Again, our midfield didn't have a worse end product in comparison to Liverpool's midfield but despite that we didn't have 3 players with 15 PL goals or more.

Our midfield neither protects the defence nor contributes enough in attack. How on earth can you try and claim it "does the job" ?

And why compare to Liverpool ? Surely Man City are the obvious bench mark ... ? Liverpool fans will tell you they need a new midfield as well !!!

I think we shouldn't lose sight of that fact that we massively outspend the vast majority of other teams.

our spending doesn't seem to give us that much of an advantage when we can't beat Leeds, Southampton and Brentford.

and the football we play is still eye watering slow and turgid. 

we should easily make top 4 on the basis of our spending . has the mega pre season splurge improved us ?

Im.not too sure at the moment.

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

Our midfield neither protects the defence nor contributes enough in attack. How on earth can you try and claim it "does the job" ?

And why compare to Liverpool ? Surely Man City are the obvious bench mark ... ? Liverpool fans will tell you they need a new midfield as well !!!

KDB ALONE is better than our whole midfield + whole attack, what is there to compare?

The next best team after them has been Liverpool, but our midfield hasn't been worse than one of Liverpool last season and yet their attack gets far more goals in comparison to our attack. So how do you explain this argument of our midfield not doing good enough when apparently you don't need them to do more than what Liverpool's midfield has been doing. 

So how come we don't have anyone close to having 15+ goals in the league? Salah can bang 20+ goals, Jota and Mané 15? That's 3 players to ours 0. 

When was the last time we had an attack that could get 15 goals in the league? Giroud that we let go? Tammy Abraham that according to Tuchel wasn't good enough? Every top team has someone that is good in attack, except us. We just had over 600 minutes without conceding a goal under Potter, at some point we had a long period of not conceding as well.

But scoring multiple goals has been a problem. Since D.Costa that had 20 league goals we haven't won the league.

You think you can win the league without a lethal attack? Show me a team that won the league without a quality striker or quality attack in general, we don't look like we have a quality attack. People keep saying how our midfield is the main problem for years, yet a fresh Broja in 1 start made everyone else look like pensioners.

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by Gol15

2 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Our midfield does the job, our attack doesn't. We're the only team that doesn't have a good attack, everyone else have some goalscorers.

Lampard had a good first season, he used 4-2-3-1 with Mount in front of Jorginho and Kovacic and the midfield was good. Later on he lost the plot.

Again, our midfield didn't have a worse end product in comparison to Liverpool's midfield but despite that we didn't have 3 players with 15 PL goals or more.

The midfield regularly doesn't play the ball quick enough to the attackers.

Lack of creativity is an issue. But lack of quick direct forward passes is another. We very rarely get attackers in 1v1 situations. 

And Mount can't attack on the dribble so right there every match 1/3 of our attack is hurt. 

2 hours ago, HonoreMeiBalsac said:

The midfield regularly doesn't play the ball quick enough to the attackers.

Lack of creativity is an issue. But lack of quick direct forward passes is another. We very rarely get attackers in 1v1 situations. 

And Mount can't attack on the dribble so right there every match 1/3 of our attack is hurt. 

With that said the lack of quality in the front 3 has been very much evident every since D.Costa and Hazard left and nobody has been close to them.